The Library Rule
by dustbutterfly
Summary: "All you're doing is recreating someone else's prank. It's derivative, is what it is." Remus laughed. "Merlin. Imagine Sirius' face if someone told him he was derivative." Or: Lily is unimpressed with the Marauders pranking abilities. This is unacceptable.


_1976_

"The thing I don't understand," explained Lily Evans to her fellow prefect as they strolled down the corridor, "is why you and your friends insist on breaking rules rather than making them."

Remus looked at her as if she'd grown a second head. "Can you really imagine Sirius or James making rules? It's laughable. It's against everything they believe. It's- it's _Sirius_ and _James_ , Lily."

Lily rolled her eyes and opened a cupboard door to check for students out after curfew. "Rules are there for a reason."

"And Sirius and James only exist to cause chaos, according to Mrs Potter, so I'm not entirely sure what your point is."

"My point is that there is a reason for every rule. Someone had to have done something to cause it to be a rule, y'know? So just breaking rules… all you're doing is recreating someone else's prank. It's derivative, is what it is."

Remus laughed. "Merlin. Imagine Sirius' face if someone told him he was derivative."

"I bet you five sickles he throws a tantrum-"

"No bet," Remus interrupted. "Of course he's throw a tantrum, it's Sirius. At least make it interesting."

Lily huffed. "If you'd let me continue – I bet Sirius throws a tantrum and breaks something."

Remus seemed to ponder it for a few seconds. "Define _something_."

"I don't know. A lamp, a tapestry, Potter's nose…"

"As if Sirius would ever punch James."

"I live in hope," Lily said wistfully, causing Remus to frown.

"I thought you'd been getting on better this year? Now he's stopped – and this is a direct quote from yourself – now he's stopped walking around, showing himself off as if he needs to overcompensate?"

"It's Potter, okay? I always hope someone's going to whack him. Anyway," she brushed her hair out of her face and held out her hand. "Do we have a deal?"

"Oh, you're on, Evans."

The next day at dinner, Peter Pettigrew watched in confusion as Remus handed over a handful of sickles to Lily Evans, who had a triumphant grin on her face.

"Gentlemen," James announced, standing on his bed and holding his arms out wide. "I do believe we have ourselves some dissension within our ranks. Moony, our loveable comrade, announced this morning that he believes our work is somewhat derivative of those who had come before us."

Sirius stretched languidly on his own bed. "I hope you're happy, mate. McGonagall gave me a detention for Friday evening and I had," here he paused for dramatic effect, raising an eyebrow, " _plans_ with Ava Montmedy."

"Ava Montmedy, really?" Peter asked, with interest. "But I thought she was with that bloke from Hufflepuff. Fenly or whatever his name is."

"Benjy Fenwick," James corrected absentmindedly. "No! Focus on the task at hand, lads. We need to come up with something that will satisfy our dear Moony's demands for creativity." He bowed to the three other boys before collapsing onto his bed. Remus accepted his bow with a lazy wave of his hand.

"What does Remus like," Sirius mused out loud, staring at the boy in question who held his gaze steadily.

"The library," said Peter, at the same time James said, "Relaxing by the lake," and Remus himself said, "Chocolate."

After five minutes of silence, James leapt up onto his bed once more. "Gentlemen, I have the answer."

When she wasn't making bets with her friends, Lily liked to get her homework done early on Saturday mornings. It meant the library would be largely empty and – more importantly, in her opinion – she could sleep in on Sunday for as long as she liked without feeling guilty that she still had to write another seven inches on her Transfiguration essay.

So, the following Saturday – the day after Sirius' detention and five days after she'd won five sickles off Remus – Lily packed her bag and went to the library, just like every week.

Except… not quite.

"What the damn hell?" she spluttered upon entering, because the library could no longer be called a library, for a necessary requirement for a room or building to be called a library was that it held books. Call her old-fashioned, but that's just what she thought.

Lily walked briskly up and down the aisles but they were all empty. She pinched herself to make sure she wasn't dreaming. The bruise left on her arm indicated otherwise.

And so Lily returned to the Gryffindor Common Room, not quite sure what to do with herself.

Of course, solely due to the way her luck was panning out that day, she collided directly with James Potter before she could even get into the Common Room.

"Oh, Evans. You, er, you alright there?" he asked, running a hand through his hair.

"Not… not especially." She blinked. "There aren't any books in the library."

His lips twitched – not that Lily was watching his mouth, of course, it was just that he was so much taller than her. It was the first thing she could see as she craned her neck to look at him. "No books in the library? You sure about that?"

"Yes, Potter, I'm sure," she snapped and then it dawned on her. She started to inch her wand out of her pocket. "You."

"Me?"

"You," Lily confirmed, pointing her wand at his face. She ignored the gasps of the Fat Lady (she'd already been ignoring her complaints for them to close the portrait). "What have you done to the library, Potter?"

His lips twitched again. "It appears that someone – not myself, of course, Evans, I promise, but _someone_ – has made the library rather more… shall we say, accessible?"

"Accessible." Lily repeated tonelessly.

At this point, James – since when did she start thinking of him as James? – Potter, that is, frowned. "That would have been hilarious if you'd have looked out the windows this morning." His frown deepened for a second before he apparently made up his mind. "Have a look."

The next thing Lily knew, James Potter was pulling her through the tunnel into the Common Room and over to the window. Where he didn't let go of her hand. James Potter was holding her hand and didn't seem to realise and it didn't feel that bad, really, in fact it could be argued that it felt right, in some weird way and Lily was so confused because James Potter was holding her hand and even from the Gryffindor Tower she could see the books stacked up outside.

"Accessible," James said with a hint of satisfaction.

Lily snorted. "Oh my god, you're not real. You're crazy."

"It's not against the rules," he pointed out. "Not really that crazy. Positively tame, in fact, but Moony insisted we were being derivative and I couldn't have that, so… yeah. Ended up having to give him a block of Honeydukes' finest that I'd been saving but I suppose you can't have it all."

"You're insane," Lily insisted. "Absolutely barmy."

She was still holding his hand, she realised with a start.

 _1991_

Harry Potter showed his potions professor the book he had been looking at.

"Library books are not to be taken outside the school," said Snape. "Give it to me. Five points from Gryffindor."

"He's just made that rule up," Harry muttered angrily.


End file.
